A Chilly Morning 10K

It's funny how I am at a point in my running "career" that I very much look forward to scheduled runs. All day yesterday, amidst the chaos of work, I was thinking about how fun my 10k this morning would be, what route I would take, what I had to do to take it easy and not push myself, following the sage advice of one Beachrunner, who (rightly) recommends slow and steady for uninterrupted running progress. I had a new pair of running pants and a new top to keep me warm this morning, and boy was this purchase ever timely! The temperature when I woke up at 6:30am was a nose hair stiffening 3 degrees (Celsius, so do your conversions to Fahrenheit, but I'm thinking 37 or 38 on that scale). I wore my thin cycling gloves to keep my fingers from freezing, and set off in relative darkness while the rest of the city was still pretty much asleep.

I walked down to the Danforth, the main strip of fantastic restaurants and shops known for it's Greek influence, and then started in on the planned easy 10k. My ankle and knee were not a problem at all, and yet again the usual kinks in the joints that would take a couple of kilometres to work out were not present. I could immediately tell that holding back on the pace was not going to be very hard because my quads were tired, most likely from my personal 5k time-trial of a few days ago. In fact, I was a little surprised that my brain allowed me to be satisfied with a pace of
6:20/km (roughly 10:11/mile) for the first little bit. I ran along the Danforth with not much of a planned route, and even had ideas of doing a simple out-and-back along Bloor Street, but then thought this would be too boring and there was too much construction on one part of this street that put me off.

After crossing the Viaduct (a big bridge going over the Don River Valley) I turned south and headed towards a beautiful old residential section of Toronto called Cabbagetown. This place sits on the west side of the Valley next to Riverdale Park West and has some fantastic old townhouses made from these bright reddish-orange bricks that were previously quarried in the Valley itself. Very nice indeed. There's even a fully functional farm in this neighbourhood that the kids absolutely love, complete with cows, horses, a donkey, ducks, geese, chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, and all the farm machinery that any young kid, like my two boys, drools over.

Anyway, I went around the farm and headed down into the park trying to stay as light as possible on my feet down the steep hill. I had only gone 4k at this point and realized I had to lengthen the loop that I had intended to do to make up the whole 10k. After going up onto the pedestrian bridge over the Don Valley Parkway, I decided to take the stairs that led down onto the familiar trails that I've been running for the past few months. It was so peaceful in the valley, surrounded by nothing other than the sound of the river, the wind in the trees, and the leaves that have now begun turning colours all over the place. My pace was now 5:45/km (9:15/mile) and I was feeling pretty good. The quads still felt heavy, and I knew that the hill leading out of the valley near the end of my run would be a challenge.

This hill, heading up Beachwood Ave, did not disappoint. My heart rate, which had been sitting nicely in the high 140s or low 150s for the entire run, spiked to 170bpm as I made my way up and out of the Valley. At the top I noticed the Garmin said I had made it through 9k, and that my pace was 5:46/km, so I didn't really slow down that much on the hill after all! Bonus!

I made it through the last K fairly easily, with my heart rate returning to the 150s pretty quickly, and then found myself with exactly a ten minute or so walk back home. The 10k time was 57:32 and my total average pace was 5:45/km. My average heart rate was 149bpm, which only spiked up to 170 on that last hill. A great run, and I held myself back, for whatever reason (quads), and was happy with that almost as much as the distance. The new pants and top were awesome, though I need to invest in a jacket for any temperatures colder than today's.

After my run I took the boys back to Ashbridges Bay Park so that Owen and his friends Aiden and Luka could practice their 1k cross-country loop again for this Wednesday's race. Owen did awesome and will have so much fun. I am stuck at a privacy conference that day and will miss his first ever race though, a total bummer...

Garmin don't lie.

The google image of my route.